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Lam said he wants to achieve three things in his three years at the club, a position he has taken on from Mark Tainton, who held the post since November last year.

Firstly, he wants to make Bristol a European Champions Cup team, meaning they would have to finish in the top six of the Aviva Premiership.

Getting promoted from the Green King IPA Championship was barely mentioned, that is a given for the former Connacht coach, who took the struggling Irish province from 10 in his first season to their first Pro12 title three years later.

Bristol fans will have plenty to smile about if he weaves his magic in similar fashion, having been relegated from the top flight last season which was their first appearance at rugby’s top table for seven years before that.

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Lam said: “We want to be in the Champions Cup. When you talk about Bristol you want to associate it with the Champions Cup.”

Lam wants Bristol to be on a level with Saracens, back-to-back winners of Europe’s biggest cup competition the last two seasons.

He said: “We are not interested in survival in the Premiership, we are not interested in obviously staying in the Championship, and we are not interested about getting up and staying there. Everything is working our way towards being a Champions Cup team. To do that we have got to do everything at an international standard.”

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Secondly, Lam wants Bristol players in the red rose of England. He explained: “Every player, myself included, wants to play at the highest level. Our rugby programme has to grow the players, has to give them the ability to express the potential which we see so Eddie Jones [the England head coach] and his team can pick players from Bristol.”

Thirdly, Lam, and the board of the club, wants there to be a strong Bristolian representation in the squad.

He said: “There is plenty of talent around here – it is about what you do with the talent. But we need to inspire those kids to say ‘When I grow up I want to play for Bristol. I want to get there, I want to play for England and I want to play at the highest level.’”